Hong Kong Airlines- $600 Business Class Seats

Hong Kong Airlines- $600 Business Class Seats

On August 16th, Hong Kong Airlines briefly advertised some ludicrously cheap business class fares from the US to the Far East, in particular you could fly for under $600 from LA to Shanghai or Bangkok.

The fares were only available for a few hours, before they were taken down, with Hong Kong Airlines saying it was an error.

However, the airline said it would indeed honour the reservations of anyone who had purchased a ticket at this exceptionally low cost.

That got the airline a lot of goodwill, as this isn’t always the case with error fares. For instance, in June, British Airways said it wouldn’t honour mistake fares to Dubai and Tel Aviv (though in fairness these were for £1 + tax)

As SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam said in a SimpliLive show, “not only did they honour the fare, it’s the way that they decided to honour the fare, that’s caught everyone’s attention.”

In fact, there was speculation that the $600 business class fare was a deliberate marketing ploy.

For example, the God Save the Points blog points out that $600 isn’t so outlandish bearing in mind Qatar Airways has previously offered business class tickets for $550:

“Airlines have blurred the lines of what’s clearly a mistake, and what’s a flash sale designed to create buzz.”

Not so said George Liu, the airline’s CMO on Twitter, who put it down to a genuine mistake. “We really screwed up”, but “we are willing to pay a price to keep our promises as a brand.”